Do you have a client relationship management strategy?

The legal sector is upbeat and from talking to people, there is a definite sense amongst lawyers that it’s all getting better. This is evidenced in The Bellwether Report 2015: The Age of the Client too – it highlights that practice performance is showing encouraging signs of growth. 63 per cent of firms say performance in increasing and two-thirds of lawyers anticipate growth over the next five years too.

This is heartening of course – the legal sector has recently undergone possibly one of the deepest recessions in its history, and at last the horizon is beginning to look rosy. However, one cannot but help caution against a false sense of security. In this digital age where there is an abundance of choice, clients like most consumers are not brand loyal, and what they perceive as value is markedly different to what lawyers believe customers value. Procurement, especially in B2B law is approached very differently by purchasers – the sacrosanct relationship with the lawyer/law firm is no longer a given. Also, common terminology means different things to both parties. ‘Transparency of costs’ is a case in point. For lawyers it means a quote of their hourly rate, but for clients it means knowing exactly what the deliverable is for that cost.

Firms need to have a client relationship management strategy. This entails devising an approach to help them develop a robust relationship with each of their clients across the various stages of engagement – right from prospect, contact and customer stages through to earning the trust and making the client an ‘advocate’ of your firm. In a corporate situation, the relationship may be driven by the lawyer/firm helping the client run his business by developing a deep understanding of the challenges and difficulties. In a home conveyancing situation, the relationship may be focused on being empathetic to a client’s personal situation, appreciating his or her need to complete the deal and helping them to achieve that result within the desired timeframe.

It is perhaps counter intuitive to lawyers and a departure from the way they have traditionally operated, but things like listening, caring, providing regular updates, demystifying the law, keeping to timetables and such are what differentiates one lawyer from another – and are the key factors that will introduce the much-desired, but missing ‘stickiness’ in the lawyer-client relationship in the current business environment.

Client relationship management done well will go a long way in securing firms’ future, regardless of the turn that the economy might take in years to come. It will poise them well to ride the wave in good times and secure them enough to enable them to weather the storm when the economic outlook is not as positive. Firms will ignore it at their peril.

You can download the full copy of The Bellwether Report 2015: The Age of the Clienthere.

About Jon Whittle

Jon is the not-so-mysterious man behind the business of law blog and a big advocate of independent legal practitioners. As market development director at LexisNexis, Jon has 15 years of experience in research, insight and business strategy. Throughout his career he’s been passionate about understanding and representing the voice of individuals to big businesses. And he’s hard at work producing cutting-edge research such as our industry-leading annual Bellwether report into the changing landscape for independent, smaller firms and sole practitioners.

Comments

You make some really good points. I suspect that increasingly the legal sector will follow the trends of retail with legal service providers being divided into two camps – the cheap and cheerful bottom end and the more expensive quality sector.

The danger for the average law firm is, just like retail, that if you’re caught in between, like next, you could find yourself squeezed. The vast majority of firms will never really be able to compete on price – there’s always someone cheaper and as technology improves, the bottom end of the market is likely to become increasingly populated by big business that sees and sells law as simply a commodity.

However, as your article suggests there is hope for those solicitors like us, who want to survive. Whilst we need to make the most of technology and exploit the best of modern marketing, we need to re-establish the role of the solicitor “as the trusted adviser” – and that involves a real and potentially lasting relationship with the client.

As Tim says, yes you do make some very succinct points, not least the client- lawyer relationship (not sure about the word “stickiness”, conjures up some rather disturbing images), because this is one of the last areas that cannot be streamlined, computerised, or de-humanised in any way. T he Doctor patient bond is now pretty much a thing of the past, and it is up to us ensure that it doesn’t go the same way in our profession, and God help the day Money Supermarket (other price comparison sites are available) get hold of things!

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MEET JON

Jon is the not-so-mysterious man behind the business of law blog and a big advocate of independent legal practitioners. As market development director at LexisNexis, Jon has 15 years of experience in research, insight and business strategy.